Although the meta description tag doesn't influence the rankings of your web pages much, it can have a major influence on the number of clicks that you get. By attracting more clicks, good meta descriptions can also have a positive influence on your rankings.

In the news: Google might discount infographic links in the future, Bing introduces new adCenter features, ads one Facebook need a long time to work, and more.

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1. How to get more clicks from the rankings that you already have

Although the meta description tag doesn't influence the rankings of your web pages much, it can have a major influence on the number of clicks that you get. By attracting more clicks, good meta descriptions can also have a positive influence on your rankings.

What are meta descriptions and why are they still important?

The meta description tag can be found in the HTML code of a web page:

<meta name="description" content="This is the meta description text. If it is relevant, search engines will display it on the search result page.">

Some people think that meta descriptions are not important anymore. However, Google Webmaster Tools shows an alert if a meta description is not unique. That's an indicator that the descriptions still matter.

Good meta descriptions can attract more clicks and a higher click-through rate.

A higher click-through rate can have a positive effect on the rankings of the web page.

In other words: good meta descriptions can deliver new customers to your website while contributing to your rankings at the same time.

How to optimize your meta descriptions

Meta descriptions should be unique: each page on your website should have its own meta description.

Meta descriptions should be relevant: boilerplate meta descriptions won't do your website good. The meta description should be relevant to the content of the page.

Include a call to action: think of what you want a user to do when they visit your page and then include a call to action in the description. The following verbs might help you: buy, download, shop, browse, download, etc.

Show your USP: tell your customers what makes you different and highlight this unique proposition in the meta description.

"As an advertiser, you need to identify the optimal selling points for your targeted audience while continuing to sharpen your value propositions, and, searchers respond to these efforts by clicking ads that are relevant to them.

Effective ad copies collect more clicks, generate a higher CTR, and drive a lower CPC. In the next few weeks, adCenter advertisers will be able to leverage an Ad Rotation function to manage this critical task."

"Facebook's Brad Smallwood says that ad campaigns running on Facebook can take up to a year to see results. That's a ludicrously long time for a advertisers to wait to see a return on their investment.

And ads bought on Facebook reach burnout—the time it takes for them to be repeatedly exposed to the target market to the point they're no longer effective—in just 72 hours."

"o now Google Places is over, and Google+ has taken over as your local business pages. Does this mean that local listings will work now? I guess the answer is no, the back-end of Places is still the same as far as I can see… And that is the root of the problem; a system that simply does not work in the Nordics."